Right-wing radical politician Giorgia Meloni appears poised to govern Italy with an absolute majority after Sunday’s election. But the amount of leeway she has will depend on two partners who are unlikely to be easy to deal with: Matteo Salvini and Silvio Belusconi.
https://www.spiegel.de-By Frank Hornig in Rome
Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi and Georgia Meloni (on Sept. 22 in Rome)Foto: Yara Nardi / REUTERS
In the end, it wasn’t quite enough. In the final few days of the campaign, Giorgia Meloni’s opponents had suddenly appeared to have a chance. The center-left Democratic Party spoke of a shift in the mood. In southern Italy, the Five Star Movement, which had already been written off, was suddenly enthusiastically celebrated.
But soon after the polls closed at 11 p.m. on Sunday, the left’s dream lay shattered. According to initial forecasts, the nationalist alliance led by Meloni and her Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) party has secured an absolute majority in parliament.
Almost 11 years after the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi, who led his country to the brink of national bankruptcy, a right-wing government will soon be taking office again in Rome. The days when outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi stood firmly by the side of Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Washington are over.
Even before the right’s election victory, there had been much discussion about the dangers for Italy and Europe. Now, they could soon become reality.
Meloni hails from a neo-fascist splinter party that erected a monument to Italy’s worst war criminal, a man responsible for genocide. She views Germany with “disgust.” And she prefers to court Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán rather than German Chancellor Olaf Scholz or French President Emmanuel Macron.
The main question after her election victory is: How far will she go in carrying out her hostile agenda? Or will reality set in over the next few wees, pushing the Meloni government to a reasonably moderate-conservative government program?
The 45-year-old now has to overcome three challenges that will come in quick succession.
First, even though she won the most votes, she still faces the complicated process of forming a government with the different right-wing parties. Second, she will need to quickly come up with an answer to the political and economic pressures that government is facing on the international stage. And finally, she will have to gain the support of a country that is deeply divided following her hate-filled campaign.
Meloni Is Now Dependent on Demanding Rivals
Meloni may now be the new leader on the right, but her partners – or, perhaps more accurately, her rivals – on the right are not exactly docile. Not so long ago, Lega head Matteo Salvini was still the undisputed leader in the right-wing party alliance. His party’s plunge to just 8.5 percent of votes according to projections makes the Lega unpredictable as a coalition partner. It’s quite possible that the right-wing populist will now have to fight for his future as party leader.
Meanwhile, the third politician in the alliance, Silvio Berlusconi, is anything but steadfast and predictable. As recently as election Sunday, he suddenly admitted that Meloni scared him “a little bit.” According to the projections, his Forza Italia party only received around 8 percent of the vote, and it is extremely difficult to predict what direction the party will go under Berlusconi’s leadership.
Given these circumstances, there’s a good chance the process of forming a government will be chaotic. It is conceivable that Salvini – if he manages to hold on as party leader – will forge an alliance with Berlusconi. Both could try to prevent a Prime Minister Meloni and nominate a more neutral person in her place to succeed Draghi.
Italian President Mattarella Has a Decisive Role
Managing egos will also be tricky when it comes to the two men’s political aspirations. Salvini would like to become interior minister again, which Meloni is seeking to prevent, afraid of the negative headlines such an appointment might produce. A trial is also underway against Salvini in Sicily for blocking a refugee ship in 2019; he has been charged with unlawful detainment and abuse of office, and the former cabinet member could face 15 years in prison if convicted. The only question is: Can Meloni really deny him the position of interior minister if she herself wants to become prime minister?
She’ll have a different problem with Berlusconi. The scandal-ridden billionaire and former prime minister (notorious for his “bunga bunga” parties) still sports black hair enviable for a man of his age and unchecked political ambitions. The almost 86-year-old would most like to continue his career in Italy’s second-highest office, as president of the Senate. But few believe that he could handle the strenuous parliamentary job. Still, the same question applies here: Can Meloni snub him without jeopardizing her chances of succeeding Draghi?
Even if she reaches an agreement with both men, forming a government still won’t be a walk in the park. Unlike in Germany, the president in Italy has a say in the allocation of posts – and incumbent Sergio Mattarella already made confident use of that power after the last election in 2018, when he prevented a politician from the victorious but politically inexperienced Five Star Movement from becoming the head of government. Instead, Giuseppe Conte, a law professor, became prime minister.
A Power Struggle Between Rome and Brussels
Another challenge lies in international politics. Here, too, the internal tensions in the right-wing coalition are causing problems. At the end of last week, Berlusconi caused outrage when he remarked on a talk show that his old friend Vladimir Putin had only wanted to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a government of “decent people.” He said the Kremlin leader had “slipped into a really difficult and dramatic situation.”
Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini has advocated ending the Western sanctions. And Meloni defended her old friend Orbán after the European Parliament overwhelmingly held that Hungary was no longer a true democracy. Critical questions await the future Italian government – certainly at the next NATO and EU summits, if not before.
The same applies to the ambitious National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) hammered out between Draghi and the European Commission. Timely implementation of the program is a prerequisite for the EU to transfer the next tranches from its historic 200-billion-euro aid package for Italy. Meloni is interested in renegotiating the program because she wants to combat what she claims is the EU’s “climate change ideology.”
Here, too, a power struggle is brewing. “If things go in a difficult direction – and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland – we have the tools,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a few days ago.
A Deep Rift
The next challenge has to do with the general mood in Italy. After a short and aggressive election campaign, there are two deep cracks in society.
First, the right and the left in the country are extremely polarized. Instead of deigning to discuss the political issues facing Italy, and there are many, the two sides instead preferred to volley harsh accusations back and forth. Dialogue and the search for compromise has become almost impossible – and this at a time when it is particularly necessary in light of the energy crisis, an impending recession and Vladimir Putin’s threats.
A perhaps even greater divide is opening up between politics and the part of society that is far removed from politics. As of Sunday, Italy’s largest political camp is that of the non-voters. Many, it can be assumed, stayed away from the polls out of resignation in the face of an election campaign that was largely bereft of substance. One of the most important tasks for the government and the opposition will be to narrow this gap in the coming years to prevent a real crisis of confidence.
What does all this mean for Giorgia Meloni? The Fratelli party boss has achieved a remarkable success. In just 10 years, she has turned her young party into Italy’s strongest political force.
No Constitutional Change After All
But her victory is less resounding than what she had been hoping for. During the election campaign, she talked frequently about a two-thirds majority for the right-wing camp in parliament and set her sights on changing the constitution to change Italy into a presidential democracy. It’s a move that would have given the government far more power, but it’s a goal she can forget now.
In the 2018 protest election, the Five Star Movement came out on top, winning 32 percent of the vote. A little over a year later, Matteo Salvini even managed 34 percent in the European elections – at the peak of his success. Meloni, on the other hand, fell short of expectations, coming in at around 24 percent on Sunday, according to projections.
The bottom line, then, is that the shift to the right was less pronounced than had been expected. Meloni owes her victory perhaps less to her own strength than to the weakness of the left camp, where virulent infighting made success almost impossible.
But that has no effect on the results. A complicated electoral law will now give the right wing it an absolute majority in parliament. And Meloni will now be able to shape Italy and, to a lesser extent, Europe according to her ideas.